France has head- quartered its more than 3,000-strong Sahel counter-insurgency force, Barkhane, in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, some 50 km (30 miles) from the Nigerian border.

Until now those troops have largely been tasked with tracking al Qaeda- linked militants spanning across the Sahara from Mauritania in the west and southern Libya in the east.“We will slightly increase the numbers on Barkhane,” Le Drian told reporters without giving specific details.”